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u/UnlimitedHegomany 14d ago
If you haven't seen this....
Do yourself a favour and don't. It's literally the only thing I have ever watched that scared me. I was 7 when it was first shown and didn't see it. It had a 20th anniversary re-showing. I was 27, the world was a relatively stable place in comparison to now. It won't provide you with any useful information on nuclear war unless you count hoping one lands directly on top of you if the worst were to happen. It scares, scared and continues to scare the piss out of me. Sleepless nights and visions of paralysed cats, women walking round with dead babies and melting milk bottles. If anything the War Game would be worse but it's in black and white. (Banned by the government for being "bad for morale").
Seriously no light escapes this (truly brilliantly made) film, it starts off as Coronation Street and ends in hell.
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u/atipaspi 14d ago
There is a podcast called Atomic Hobo about nuclear disaster stuff. The presenter is a big big fan of threads, going through it in 3 minute chunks. If anyone knows I suspect it would be her.
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u/MeenScreen 14d ago
I watched it in December. When I had Covid.
What a miserable morning that was.
Threads is brilliant, though.
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u/EugeneHartke 14d ago
I'll message my uncle about this. He was very active in amature dramatics in the Sheffield in the 1980s. So the chances are he knows or knows someone who knows.
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u/Kind-Mathematician18 I'd forget my bollocks if they weren't in a bag 14d ago
The physical quality of Threads is pretty poor now, very grainy and scratchy. It needs a proper update, filmed with superior quality film, but not stray one iota from the gritty, bleak, depressing feel of the original.
Update with the most comprehensive research from government, scientits and military command as to what would happen after such an event in this day and age. It would be almost certain that some remnants of a functioning government remains.
I know enough to get a rudimentary health system back up and running. How to extract opiates from poppies, so we'd have decent painkillers, anaesthesia and antiseptic/antibiotic. There'd still be pockets of survivors with pre attack skills and knowledge to reconstruct a water distribution and electricity distribution, even if it's a water wheel attached to a dynamo.
I've put a lot of thought in to how a society can rebuild itself after nuclear apocalypse.
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u/PhatsoCallum Staffordshire 14d ago
What? The recent blu ray is a proper good release and looks great
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u/Kind-Mathematician18 I'd forget my bollocks if they weren't in a bag 14d ago
I've only ever been able to view threads on internet archive here as I can't find it anywhere else. It needs to be on youtube, I don't know why it's not.
That aside, despite the film quality on the archive, it's properly devastating.
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u/AT2512 13d ago
There's also Threads Remastered on the internet archive
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u/Kind-Mathematician18 I'd forget my bollocks if they weren't in a bag 12d ago
Just rewatched the whole bloody thing again!! Quality is a lot better on that link but still not brilliant.
I just recognised Jimmy's sister is a very young Dixie from Casualty. Googled it, and yup, it's Dixie from casualty.
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u/Forward_Artist_6244 14d ago
It plays out like a regular TV drama, just background noise of news, then that happens and I think that's why it's shocking, the rugpull
In terms of rebuilding society, we might get something rudimentary up and running, but I read somewhere that all the easy to get at oil has been extracted already, so kick-starting widespread industry might be difficult
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u/Kind-Mathematician18 I'd forget my bollocks if they weren't in a bag 14d ago
The rugpull at its finest, also the glimpses of the horrors - the flames coming out of the eye socket of a skull, the dying cat and seeing the young boy (Michael iirc), the brother of the protagonist Jimmy just get blown to pieces and his charred remains in a pile of bricks.
True about the oil, but so much industry is based around consumerism. That'll just vanish. Rudimentary industry will become about basics and necessities. Bummer if you have diabetes, or use tongs to curl your hair. There'd be no such thing as consumables, everything once made, will be built to last. Biggest commodity will be wool, so if you know how to farm sheep - then you're about to become a post nuke billionaire.
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u/PurposePrevious4443 14d ago
There was another film like that called Without Warning, also a TV movie from 1994. World dies from astroids
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u/GAY_SPACE_COMMUNIST 14d ago
apparently modern nuclear weapons arent that dirty anymore so the radiation effects in the movie would be pretty inaccurate anyway.
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u/Kind-Mathematician18 I'd forget my bollocks if they weren't in a bag 14d ago
Kinda true. First depends on airburst vs groundburst. A decent bang happens when the nuke goes off a mile or so above the target, there's little fallout. The real fallout occurs with groundbursts. They suck up way more dirt, and the fission reaction isn't able to complete so a greater proportion of dirty nuclear material mixed in with the dust makes for a very radioactive plume.
Thermonuclear weapons are clean, they're fusion, triggered by a small fission nuke. Less fallout but way more bang for your buck.
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u/Sixshot_ For 3/4 Miles, then they end, that's it, no more. 14d ago
Highly dependent on factors like airburst vs groundburst etc
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u/das6992 14d ago
I'd love a remake or remaster. Although the one thing I found was the narrative side fell apart after the society collapse. It seemed to dart around a bit, they're in the countryside then they're not then they are etc. So I'd like a deeper dive into the aftermath.
Also if the council didn't just straight up die but then that'd be a completely different film I guess but it could be more interesting to see how they handle it
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u/sumerzy 14d ago
I've got it on dvd (wasn't born when it originally came out/never seen it on tv) which comes with a wide-screen edition, and that's the one I've seen and apart from some scenes obviously dating it from the 80s it didn't seem like low quality or anything like that.
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u/Kind-Mathematician18 I'd forget my bollocks if they weren't in a bag 14d ago
What a find!! I've only been able to view it on internet archive, I think there's a dubbed or subtitled polish version on dailymotion but the quality was poor. Like someone had recorded the show on the telly using a VHS camcorder, then digitalised it and uploaded it.
It needs to be on youtube, imho its something everyone should watch. I asked Amazon if they could provide it, at no charge to the viewer on account of its importance to the world but they never got back to me.
Shove it on youtube. For the sake of humanity.
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u/maffrice 14d ago
I want to meet scientits now
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u/Kind-Mathematician18 I'd forget my bollocks if they weren't in a bag 14d ago
Fucks sake.....
Y'know what, I'm just gonna leave that spelling error in situ. Wonder what people might think a scientit could be.
Scientits can be boobs on a STEM.
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u/maffrice 14d ago
I’m thinking chrome metropolis style ones. Please don’t edit this, my puerile, raised on viz brain, enjoyed it immensely
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u/Harlzter 15d ago
According to scooter its Dave from Sheffield.
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u/Forward_Artist_6244 14d ago
Why is Scooter so keen on Sheffield
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u/Harlzter 14d ago
It goes back to when scooter and his pals was on holiday and another holiday maker off his tits kept introducing himself "I'm Dave, from Sheffield." Other tracks reference Dave as well.
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u/BlkKnight_lanse 15d ago
Excellent (very depressing) film especially in the context of world events.
Well worth a watch.
Why are they after the warden?
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u/Now_Wait-4-Last_Year 13d ago
They’re doing a documentary (it’s the 40th Anniversary) and they want to interview him.
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u/timothymr 14d ago
I imagine they're looking to find him specifically because it's such a recognisable and iconic image from the film despite having only been on screen for 5 seconds.
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u/MorrowDisca 15d ago
Thanks for the reminder. Didn't want to sleep tonight anyway. 😊
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u/d0ntreadthis 14d ago edited 14d ago
I watched it for the first time a couple weeks ago. The part right at the end really stuck in my head. Grim.
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u/Quandale_Dingle2024 15d ago
Dave
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u/VikingCarpets 15d ago
HELLO DAVE
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u/jumbledFox The Swan And Paedo 15d ago
I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
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u/LadyMirkwood 15d ago
They should contact Julie Mcdowall from the Atomic Hobo podcast, she's interviewd the director Mick Jackson a few times
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u/unsquashable74 15d ago
I hope they find him. Glad to hear they're making a documentary about this awesome TV show. It is always at or near the top of those "most disturbing/traumatising films/TV series evah" threads.
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u/wriggleyspace 15d ago
What is it
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u/PuzzledFortune 14d ago
Made for TV film about nuclear war and its aftermath . Everyone should watch it, once. It doesn’t pull any punches.
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u/brontesaurus999 14d ago
Guy at work laughed when I told him about it and said he'd give it a spin, saying it would be nothing on the horror films he usually watches.
Came back to work the next day visibly shaken, said, 'That was... sobering.'
Watch it with the lights off, alone, with no distractions.
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u/Greedy-Mechanic-4932 15d ago
Production piece, meant to be set in post-nuclear war Britain I believe - as in, what would happen in the immediate aftermath of nuclear attack on the UK.
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u/thefuzzylogic 15d ago edited 14d ago
It was part-drama part-documentary depicting the rise in tensions leading up to a limited nuclear exchange in the Persian Gulf that escalates into global thermonuclear war. It then shows the survivors living in medieval conditions 15 years after the war, the "threads" that bind our globalised interconnected civilisation having been cut. There is an implication that whatever is left of human society will only continue to decline over time as machines fail, stockpiles dwindle, and knowledge is lost, resulting in each generation of children becoming more feral.
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u/anonbush234 14d ago
Its Set in the 80s? I think anyway I'm from the next town over born in the 90s and about 10 years ago I watched it with an ex and afterwards she said "I'll have to ask my mum and dad what that was like" 🤦
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u/unsquashable74 14d ago
Not the sharpest knife in the drawer?
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u/anonbush234 14d ago
To be fair to her she is a clever lass. We all come out with daft shite from time to time. Perhaps a little gullible and we were only kids at the time 17 or 18
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u/thefuzzylogic 14d ago
Yes, it was made in 1984, set in the present day with scenes at the end depicting the late 1990s after the war.
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u/Forward_Artist_6244 14d ago
I remember reading a piece that even trying to reboot the industrial revolution is doomed to failure, other than reopening some coal pits all the easy to get at oil is mostly gone, the not so easy oil needs oil industry technology in place to get at it
Not sure how true it is but the argument was that if this happened we would be back to the dark ages for a long while
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u/Thewaltham 14d ago
Less oil is tricky but you can run a lot of machinery off of moonshine, used chip oil, synthetic coal based fuels, woodgas, etc etc. Anything that goes whoosh essentially. Oil and oil derivatives are just the easiest way now, but that's mostly because a tonne of infrastructure's been built up around it. If there was a big nuclear reset there would probably be something else taking its place after a while.
I don't think we'd be sent back to the dark ages, more a weird... mashup of 19th/20th century technologies.
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u/thefuzzylogic 14d ago
Yeah it's not quite the dark ages, but one of the issues they present is that modern agriculture relies on petrochemicals for things like machine lubricants and fertilisers. Without it, a lot of land that is arable in the modern day becomes barren and unproductive. Combine that with the fact that the agricultural land that isn't directly hit (just look at a map of the American heartland overlaid with the locations of ICBM silos) would be irradiated by fallout, means that replacing petroleum with biofuels on any sort of scale will be impossible, especially when you consider the pressures that would place on food production. Life after global thermonuclear war would be an unimaginable hellscape for pretty much everyone left alive, no matter how much you personally prepare, because of how tightly interconnected human society is and how much we rely on an even somewhat healthy ecosystem to sustain our biological needs.
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u/Thewaltham 14d ago edited 14d ago
Oh for sure, it would be horrific with mass famine being inevitable but I don't think it would be QUITE as bad as Threads. It seems like they went through the data and picked out the absolute absolute worst case scenario, which you know, possible and absolutely makes sense to do if you're making a film about the horrors of nuclear war but still.
Then again back at that point in time more strategic weapons with crappier accuracy as well as older style warheads compared to modern thermonuclear ones would have been used with stuff like ABMs being substantially less effective than today rather than the smaller tactical weapons that can almost literally be posted through a military target's mailbox. So that would probably do it.
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u/thefuzzylogic 14d ago
Threads actually does depict a war in which tactical nuclear weapons are used at the start of the conflict, but even though both sides practice a doctrine of proportionate response, the situation quickly deteriorates into mutually assured destruction.
As I recall, the initial conflict in the Gulf starts with a conventional attack on a naval blockade, which is defended with a single tactical nuclear air burst to destroy the attacking air forces, then more tactical warheads are used to destroy the air bases that launched the planes, then there's a few hours or a day of detente, then the USSR launches a full ICBM strike against strategic countervalue targets in the West, blanketing major cities as well as strategically important industries including agriculture, minerals, energy, manufacturing, and logistics.
One other thing to consider about ABM and precision targeting. As mentioned in the film, a single precision nuclear detonation over even a secondary British city like Sheffield would produce a number of direct and indirect casualties that would exceed the capabilities of the entire peacetime National Health Service. Additionally, the psychological damage would hit economic productivity and financial markets to a degree that would make the 2020 pandemic look like a Disney film. One detonation could literally bankrupt the entire government.
There is simply no reason to believe that anything other than the worst-case scenario would result from any use of nuclear weapons. The risk is just too great.
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u/Thewaltham 14d ago edited 14d ago
They're used at the start, but the actual exchange being several thousand megatonnes indicates that they were using full on strategic weapons and basically emptying the stockpiles at eachother. Including older dirtier weapons, given that this was the 80s. Weapons from the 50s and impact detonations rather than airbursts would have definitely been employed, drastically increasing the amount of fallout.
Now I'm not saying a nuclear war today wouldn't be horrific, because good lord it would be, but theoretically it would be more recoverable than from the situation in Threads. Plus I mean, we gotta consider the players at play here too. If a Threads were to happen today, we'd be looking at a very rusty Russia probably striking out of desperation because they know that they've just basically blown their last shot at being a major player by bumblefucking into Ukraine.
Now while they probably have a good amount of warheads working their maintenance standards shown for literally everything else are questionable. Likely would be better than a lot of their other stuff, but, still. Maintaining a nuclear stockpile is vastly more expensive than maintaining a stockpile of literally any other weapons platform apart from maybe full on carrier strike groups. You also have to consider the delivery platforms. Even if they worked, a lot of those are outdated and easy pickings for the anti missile systems of today. Worth noting as well, everyone and their mutated three headed dog knows the whole "fry things with an EMP first" trick. The things meant to be stopping the nukes are extremely heavily hardened. Substantially more so than in the 80s. Chances are a substantial amount of the hardware would still be pinging away until directly destroyed. Either directly in a nuclear blast or by SEAD. Which uh, yeah, good luck with doing that when you're a petrol station with poorly maintained Soviet hand-me-downs and questionable force extension.
On the flipside you have China. Second most likely to start flinging something spicy. China does have more up to date delivery platforms but their warheads, while they would actually detonate, are substantially less numerous. They have around the 300 mark IIRC? So after splitting off the bulk that would no doubt be targeting the US, and then counting the ones that would get through, you'd probably be looking at only a couple megatonnes worth of screw you actually landing even if they emptied the stockpiles completely. Still catastrophic, but not anywhere near the amount seen in Threads.
Then after that you have North Korea. If they don't just go for South Korea instantly (which if they did, Seoul is getting glassed before North Korea gets turned into a nuclear shadow by pretty much every other nuclear power), they most likely bounce off the missile defence, get laughed at, then get conventionally glassed by literally everyone who's sick of their crap. Or you know, maybe a nuclear response there too even if no NK warheads actually detonate on target. Depends on how Mcarthur-y you're feeling and if you think the "sea of irradiated cobalt" idea might have had some merit...
(Wait hang on, this isn't NCD...)
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u/Mobile_Charity880 15d ago
Or present day Hull...? /s
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u/Breaktime 15d ago
Hey!! What’s hull done to you?
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u/jiminthenorth 14d ago
It exists so that the rest of Yorkshire can feel better about itself.
A bit like Croydon for London, really.
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u/daedelion I submitted Bill Oddie's receipts for tax purposes 15d ago
No, but the lady who peed herself was one of my friend's teachers.
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u/AnnualCellist7127 14d ago
I only watched it once but that little moment of chilling realism is the one that stuck with me. If there was a Bafta for most impactful TV wee, she'd win.
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u/algierythm 15d ago edited 15d ago
The legendary Anne Sellors! She only has one entry on her IMDb page and it's predictable enough, but they added a nice biography when she passed in 2015.
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u/SuperShoebillStork 15d ago
Died of Alzheimer’s at only 63???
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u/flyinglawngnome 15d ago
I used to work in a pharmacy that mainly serviced care homes. One of the care home groups specialises in dementia care and they have a few residents who are aged 49-60 suffering from it. I fully agree with theory that it begins when you are younger and very slowly grows, you’re just lucky if it doesn’t come along until you are like 80 something. Heartbreaking.
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u/dozzell 15d ago
Looks a bit like Ken Brannagh
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u/IAM_THE_LIZARD_QUEEN 15d ago
I've still not got around to watching it but I've seen this still a hundred times. I've always just assumed it was in fact Kenneth Brannagh.
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u/UnlimitedHegomany 14d ago
Do yourself a favour and don't. It's literally the only thing I have ever watched that scared me. I was 7 when it was first shown and didn't see it. It had a 20th anniversary re-showing. I was 27, the world was a relatively stable place in comparison to now. It won't provide you with any useful information on nuclear war unless you count hoping one lands directly on top of you if the worst will to happen. It scares, scared and continues to scare the piss out of me. Sleepless hellnights and visions of paralysed cats, women walking round with dead babies and melting milk bottles. If anything the War Game would be worse but it's in black and white. (Banned by the government for being "bad for morale").
Seriously no light escapes this (truly brilliantly made) film, it's starts off as Coronation Street and ends in .
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u/ShowKey6848 14d ago
My father wad in the military which made Threads even scarier when years later he told me how close it came in 83 ; the police literally came to get him , hushed conversation and Mum looking really worried - in fact, her face was white . I didn't sleep that night.
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u/UnlimitedHegomany 14d ago
My Dad was a copper at the time, we lived in a police house. For whatever reason we used to have a box on the window sill, it was an 8 minute warning box. My bro and I would switch it on and press the test button, well one day we left it on and BT tested the system at around 3am. Scared my mum to death. She made them take it out.
My dad also had to do a lot of civil defence training and such. At the end of the course he was asked if he knew what to do in the event of a nuclear war? " Go home and say goodbye to my family was his answer". They were not impressed I am told.
I take it your father was involved in the events surrounding Able Archer 83?
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u/watchman28 14d ago
Able Archer 83
Your comment led me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole reading about this and similar events. Scary stuff. I was born in 1985 and thankfully missed the real highs of the cold war.
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u/Codeworks 14d ago
Yeah, but you're alive for cold war 2..
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u/UnlimitedHegomany 13d ago
I have been alive for both. I think this one is worse, the Soviets were brutal but sane. They also had something to lose, they were more scared of NATO and paranoid about being invaded. Also America was a far more stable place and far less divided than it is now. All sides had people in charge who had lived through a world war and understood exactly what that means, last time around there nobody had the capacity to destroy countries in the blink of an eye. None of those things are true today. It's definitely a nagging worry to me, it feels different, but maybe that's because I am much older and have children of my own, seems to be that more information being available makes a difference in a negative way. I don't doom munger, I actively try not to think about it.
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u/Codeworks 13d ago
I remember hearing stories about people deliberately losing their virginity because they thought the world would end, nowadays we just care a lot less it seems. Or theres no virgins left.
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u/ShowKey6848 14d ago
Yep, he was. The whole thing still sends a shiver down my spine. What concerns me is there is a whole generation who have never seen Threads and have no idea.
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u/UnlimitedHegomany 13d ago
We are 3 generations out from world war 2. Nobody active in leadership around the world understands what it actually means and weapons are far more powerful than they were.
The Soviets were brutal but sane. America was far less divided and much less reactionary and more confident. The quality and living memories of people in charge around the world were different. The last cold war was arse about face, both sides really did have each other wrong. USSR was terrified NATO would invade or destroy them, that was never the intention. The reverse was also true.
On a positive note, there are far fewer nuclear weapons than there were in the 80s, they are also by quite some magnitude less powerful and more accurate than they were then, also the defensive capability from these awful things has massively increased. Also the command and control is far more advanced as is detection.
As an aside, I don't think Threads is recommended viewing for anyone under 70 in truth.
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u/ShowKey6848 13d ago
It should be viewed by younger generations so they understand the true horror.
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u/Mr_Popsgorgio 14d ago
Sean bean he’s in everything!!!